PDF Summary:The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore

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From the stories shared through glass dividers in the prison’s visiting room and interviews with other significant people in both their lives, Moore wrote this book to seek an answer to the question, “Why him and not me?” He organizes his book into eight chapters, with each chapter representing a significant year for both men.

Moore is adamant that he is not passing judgement on Wes’s behavior or excusing his participation in the murder of a father of five. His book aims to examine the circumstances that influence decisions and opportunities in a person’s life, both personally and socially. Finally, Moore aims to show that we are not merely a representation of our actions. Wes’s involvement in the book is a testament to the possibility of humanity even in the face of evil.

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Wes repeated a version of Moore’s question back to Moore, wondering about the impact losing his father had on Moore’s life. Moore didn’t know what to say. All he knew was that he missed his father every day. In that moment, Moore saw the difference between their stories. He was encouraged to always remember. Wes was encouraged to forget.

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She found solace in the Organization of African and African-American Students at the American University, helping to organize and mobilize black students to join the conversations relating to injustice. Another member of the group, Bill, was two years older than Joy. They met and immediately fell in love. They were engaged after only two months and married two years later.

Joy’s dream of a wonderful life with Bill soon turned into a nightmare. She began to see that Bill’s free spirit and fierce rebellion—qualities that excited her in the early days—were not the best qualities for a husband. His dabbling in drugs turned into a full-blown addiction, and Joy desperately wanted to help Bill get through it. She put her energy into making a life that would satisfy Bill, including having a child. But Bill’s addictions to drugs and alcohol grew worse. He became physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive.

The final straw was the night Bill came home and assaulted Joy over dirty dishes. He threw Joy on the ground and began to punch her. Joy had had enough. She grabbed a knife from the butcher’s block and threatened that if he ever laid a hand on her again, she’d kill him. A...

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Finding His Niche

It wasn’t long before Moore found a community of friends in his new home. One day, he was granted permission to walk to the basketball courts five blocks away. He dribbled his ball, practicing his crossover dribble and savoring the time outside.

Moore found salvation that day on the Bronx basketball court. After waiting on the sidelines, he was called in to play. He played his best, and despite not winning or succeeding against the older, bigger kids, he was opened to a new world.

Pick-up games are common in many urban environments. People, old and young, unemployed or professional, gang-affiliated or straight, came together on the neutral territory of a basketball court. Moore picked up the style and language quickly, growing in both skill and personality among this newfound brotherhood. Moore had found his tribe.

The Other Wes Moore

Despite the six-year age difference between Tony and Wes, the two had a close relationship. Wes looked up to his older brother, and Tony felt a fierce protective instinct for Wes. Mary had started working full-time at Bayview Medical Center, and Tony looked after eight-year-old Wes during the day. But...

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Moore stood out as one of a handful of black students at Riverdale. Another was a boy named Justin. Justin lived close to Moore’s neighborhood, and the two hung out together almost daily. They had a crew of other boys from their neighborhood they hung out with, but all of those boys went to public school.

School affiliation was a big deal in the neighborhood. Different schools carried different statuses, or street cred, and by association, a person also was given that status. A white school like Riverdale was not part of the hierarchy and, in fact, had the result of marking a kid from the hood who went there an outsider.

Whenever Moore was questioned about going to the white school, he’d try to change the subject. When that failed, he’d pretend the other students were intimidated by him.

Getting Stuck in the Middle

Going to Riverdale was like walking into a different reality for Moore. The dichotomy wore heavily on him. Whenever he was on campus, seeing the beauty and opulence, he felt lost and guilty. He knew his mother struggled to keep his enrollment active, and he felt like an outsider among the privileged students.

**Moore did everything he could to hide...

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Moore didn’t understand. When he asked for clarity, Wes stated that both of them had made some big mistakes in their childhoods. Both had opportunities to try again and do better. Wes said the difference was contextual. If the circumstances surrounding the first mistake are exactly the same, sometimes a second chance is just another chance to fail.

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With almost no supervision, Moore was able to devise a strategy for skipping school without punishment. Attendance was recorded in homeroom each day. Moore had a young and inexperienced homeroom teacher and took advantage of her. He tormented her by goofing off in class until she became so frustrated, she didn’t want him around. A sort of mutual understanding was developed between them. He wouldn’t show up and disrupt her class, and she would turn a blind eye to his absences.

A few days a week, Moore would walk toward school and wait until his grandma drove away. Then, he’d meet up with other truant students and hang out until it was time to be picked up. Although Shani was dropped off with him, she was always loyal and never told.

Running Wild

After leaving the basketball courts one day, Moore ran into Shea, a friend from the neighborhood. Shea was also eleven years old, but he’d become entwined in the predominant neighborhood business: drugs. He worked as a “runner,” a low-level position within the drug hierarchy that transported packages from place to place for the dealers. Boys like Shea were less likely to raise suspicions by law enforcement.

Moore and...

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For the Sake of the Child

After learning about Valley Forge Military Academy, Joy took her desire to enroll Moore to her parents. They all agreed it was the best chance they had to save the boy.

However, Valley Forge was even more expensive than Riverdale, and the family didn’t know how to afford it. Joy reached out to a network of family and friends, explaining the situation and asking for any help they could provide. Likewise, Moore’s grandparents searched for ways to gather the money.

For most of their lives, Joy’s parents had invested their earnings into their house. The plan had been to cash out and use the money to retire back in Jamaica. But with that plan no longer on the table, Moore’s grandparents decided to take the equity out of the home and used it to pay for the first year’s tuition at Valley Forge.

Get in Line or Get Out

Military school was the last place Moore thought he would end up, but that’s exactly where he found himself at the age of twelve. He received a rude awakening his first morning at 5:30 a.m., when he and the rest of the incoming cadets were called to order.

In his typical apathetic manner, Moore ignored the roll call...

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When the Real World Comes Calling

One Saturday night, Moore and Dalio, another platoon leader, had just put their platoon to bed and were rushing to make it to a pizza place before they closed. Dressed in uniform, they walked into town down a dimly lit street. They’d only been walking for ten minutes when a car pulled up next to them. The boys peered into the car, ready to assist the driver they assumed was lost. What they found instead was a group of drunk white teenagers.

The teens teased Moore and Dalio. One of them said he was the son of a colonel at the academy and chided the boys about their conduct and condition of their uniforms. He said he was going to report Moore and his friend, despite the fallacy of his accusations.

The car pulled away, and the two sergeants continued their journey to the restaurant. A minute later, the car returned, heading for them at full speed. Moore and Dalio jumped out of the way. The car stopped, and the boys started running. They were saved from another close call when a different car drove by.

At that moment, Moore’s military training slid away, and the boy from the Bronx surfaced. He looked at Dalio’s scared and...

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One book, in particular, influenced his shift in life goals. Colin Powell’s memoir, My American Journey, spoke to Moore in a way no other book had. Powell was a Bronx native, and he spoke of his struggles with discrimination and civil rights as a young man and soldier. Powell believed in the military, in which black Americans had more freedom than at home. He saw how the military helped spawn progress at a national level, and he was grateful for the way the Army helped him learn to love his country.

Powell’s book spoke to Moore’s experiences. Moore wanted to rise above the stereotypes held about young black men, especially those from urban environments. Like Powell, he also sought a path to something greater than himself. Moore wasn’t foolish enough to believe he could overcome the tenets of racism in America. But Powell had shown him a different perspective of race and opportunity, and Moore began to think about his life differently.

Defying Expectations

When Moore thought about who’d been the most influential people in his life, he realized that, besides his family, all were military men. **These men had taught him the value of public service, the...

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A Man of the World

Moore’s status and successes continued to increase throughout college. He was on the brink of graduating from Johns Hopkins University as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve and completing his second internship with the mayor of Baltimore City.

Moore had been working for Mayor Schmoke since returning to Baltimore two years earlier. At one of their final meetings, Mayor Schmoke suggested he apply for a Rhodes Scholarship after graduation. Some of the most important and influential people had been Rhodes Scholars, including the mayor and Bill Clinton. The mayor also knew that Moore was spending his final semester studying abroad in South Africa. He advised Moore to take in as much as he could about the legacy of apartheid and find a way to bring that experience into his application.

What Moore didn’t understand was that Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the scholarship, was a white racist. Schmoke was telling Moore to immerse himself in the legacy of racism and find his place in the world despite it. Like Colin Powell, Schmoke was guiding Moore to create meaning out of the oppression blacks had suffered for centuries.

A Fish Out of...

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When Wes first went to prison, he attended Friday mosque services to see Tony, the only time they could meet despite living in the same prison. But the more he heard about the Muslim religion, the more he wanted to learn. He now serves as a devout leader in the Muslim community behind bars.

Mary, Nicey, Alicia, and the children continue to visit Wes, but he mostly listens to what is happening in their lives. Nothing ever changes for him, and he has nothing new to say when they ask how he’s doing. He loves to see them, but he hates not being there for them.

At the time this book was written, Wes had started his tenth year in prison at thirty-three years old. He has become a grandfather. He still claims he was not present during the robbery or ensuing murder of Sergeant Prothero.

For Many, Life Goes On

Wes Moore’s Family and Friends

Joy Moore works as a consultant for foundations, helping them learn to use film and media to get their messages out. She lives outside of Baltimore City, where life is calmer and quieter.

Nikki lives in Virginia and owns an event-planning company. Shani lives in Los Angeles with her husband. She attended both Princeton and...